


Fractured Fairytale

by Vesperchan



Category: Naruto
Genre: Arranged Marriage, BAMF Sakura, Death and the Maiden, Eventual Smut, F/M, Finished, Lore - Freeform, fairytales - Freeform, sacerfice, the beast in the woods, three part
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-29
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-27 11:15:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7615894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vesperchan/pseuds/Vesperchan





	1. Chapter 1

 

They were of a poor people, but when Sakura stood in the clearing at the center of the ring of stone megaliths she was dressed in more finery than she had ever seen in her life. Her beauty had cost her this; the last spring born virgin was a thing no mother wanted for their daughters to be. At her ankles on the stone alter a pure white lamb bled out, staining her naked toes red. Soon that too would be her fate. They had tied a cord of woven gold to her ankle and knotted it to the hind leg of the slaughtered lamb.

‘We are a pair of scapegoats,’ she thought, shutting her eyes and trying to breath without taking in the forest’s air. It was different from anything she had breathed before, and she knew why. This was the world of the thing the old gods scorned. This was something the children called the forbidden forest and the adults called it The Maw.

In her mind’s eye, she replayed the memories that refused to be ignored any longer. Scenes and flashes of conversation screamed inside her mind, demanding attention. One was more overpowering than the others and laid claim to her attention.

_‘They think you are going to die this spring, this is why they mourn,’ Baba said. “Being fed to a monster, they think.”_

_Outside on the shortest day of the year, the last solstice before the Spring Equinox, a community dressed in black and made sure every door in town was adorned with holly and mistletoe. Sakura couldn’t remember when the tradition had been joyful instead of solemn, even though feasting and games were also part of the tradition._

_“I’m not going to die though, am I?” Sakura asked, already knowing she was different. All the other spring born girls who had been sacrificed had lived their life as they pleased as long as they remained maidens for the Bone Husk King to feast on come the Spring Equinox. Sakura, however, had been spirited away to live in isolation, tutored separately and raised with great care by a small army of nursemaids and elder women._

_“Not if you’re smart about it. You’ve got a better chance than the others.” Baba looked down thoughtful at the pipe she held in one hand and the dried grasses she clutched in the other. A moment later she shook the thought free and stuffed her pipe. “You’re going to marry him instead.”_

When Sakura opened her eyes again the god scorned was on the other side of the stones, red eyes spinning. There was just enough moonlight to make out the pale alabaster of his deer skull mask with wicked, twisting antlers. She couldn’t see his smile, but she felt it when he chuckled, the vibrations being a thing that the earth shuddered against.

“Spring maid, be you for me?” he chortled. His voice was human, but bewitching and dark the way men’s voices are when the talk to pretty girls and things they want to eat.

Sakura lift her face and the crown of carnations atop her head shed not a single petal. “This maid be for the Bone Husk King,” she recited without a waver to her voice. She sounded stronger than she knew she was. “Be you he?”

He growled low and the stones shuddered as if in stress for only a moment before he was stepping between them, crossing the invisible barrier to keep out lesser evils. The black carved wards shuddered and strained, but did little else.Sakura doubted that even the rushing waters could keep the Bone Husk King at bay.

He crossed over as a man between the stones, but then a step later, his face was close to the earth and he was behind her, circling like a wolf. Sakura blinked and he was somewhere else and then he wasn’t. The blood pool at her tones was smeared and then he was kneeling on black knees, face level with her navel.

Sakura braced for what was next. Her white cotton dress had been slit there for this exact reason. He reached for her and pushed apart the folds to see the mark she had been born with. She saw the white gold halo reflected in the orbs of his eyes and felt his breath catch on a sucking intake.

‘ _The ones with the most grace are always the prettiest, what a shame. It’s a full circle too.’_

“You…” his voice was almost reverent, and when he turned his face upwards his eyes reflected something unfathomable.

Sakura breathed deep, steeling herself. “I…I am for thee, born with all the world’s grace within me.”

“Others have come to me with grace,” he purred, still staring up at her. “I’ve devoured them all.”

Sakura frowned, feeling her hands make fists that shook at her sides. She hated how she couldn’t see his face. She was staring into the darkness and feeling weightless all at once.

Yes, all girls born under the cherry blossoms came into the world with a little blessing, a little bit of grace, but the reason Sakura had been cloistered away in a house high above the others and let out only when the streets were clean was the same reason they kept her veiled to the sight of others and locked up when she dreamed of flying to the moon. Her grace was full, the halo on her body was unbroken. Where other girls had been incomplete, she was whole and full, but more empty than any other. 

Ever since she could remember she could feel it in her, the swirling green mist that healed and surged like excitement when the moon called to her in a dream. The moon was not for her though, no matter how many voices called to her from up there among the asteroids and stars where exalted spirits lived. Her place was in the forest holding a monster at bay. There would be no more daughters sacrificed on the festival of spring.

“Eat me if you can, Bone Husk King, I am no less than your equal offered to you freely.”

The noise he made deep in his throat wasn’t human, nor was it the kind she could name to any animal; It was beastly.

She saw the moment the pupils, so wide in the centers of his eyes, dilated to thin points and he surged. Sakura braced, the gold cord around her ankle meaning nothing and everything as he bit into her shoulder.

Her hands found his ears and she dug her nails into his scalp as her shoulder bloomed in hues of red and death as her flesh opened up. The holy within her surged and she tensed as it flowed into her arms. He stiffened and she was able to pull him away, straining as his face left her shoulder inch by inch, arms shaking from the strain. 

Sakura heaved one last time and he drew back away from her, creating distance and crouching on the stone with his claws leaving a red mess under his hands. Her shoulder throbbed, but she felt the skin pulling back and knitting its self back together. His eyes watched the transformation of her shoulder in something close to wonder. How many other girls would have bled out and died by now?

The bottom half of his mask was broken off and she could see his lips stretch into a crooked smile as he licked blood off his teeth. Some of it dribbled off his chin and caught on the edge of his sharpened jaw.

Now that she could see more of him, she began to regret wanting to see his face. The way he made his lips into a smile made her insides flutter like a nest of wasps. He was dangerous and she shouldn’t be provoking something so ancient and powerful because this was different from the way she teased errand boys and village children who crawled too close to her room on a dare. He wasn’t like anything she had ever encountered before.

“All of this for me?” he hummed in thinly veiled excitement.

_‘Don’t let him have his way. You must say the words I taught you.’_

The old woman’s words were nearly faded in Sakura’s memory, but she held onto the last thing she knew she needed to say in order to live through the night. “If you will but have me, equal in your court, your queen and consort.”

His shoulders rose up behind his head and the whole of his body was a drawn bowstring, tense and waiting to shoot free. His hands on the stone, red tipped and dirty, curled ever so slightly before he shifted back, as if recoiling from her words. He was a monster dressed in black and bone and blood, but he seemed more like a frightened house cat in that moment. Her words had made him meek. But as quickly as she recognized it, the hesitation in his frame was gone and he was drawing himself up, impossibly high. He stood and loomed over her, six then seven feet and bending.

“You know not what you ask, girl.” His voice was thunder, no longer teasing. She was no longer a thing he would play with before eating. He saw her and knew she was, or could be, just as dangerous as him.

He was partly right. She didn’t know what she was asking. All she knew was what they told her in stories all her childhood. There were stories of girls who loved beasts and broke spells of immaturity after a hundred years, and then there were stories of girls who hid swords in their dresses and killed men in their sleep, and there were even more stories of girls who put on armor and never made a secret of their intention to kill the thing that devoured sisters and cousins.

The Bone Husk King was a story that had never been told before. She had no idea how it might end or even how it had begun. They said The Bone Husk King just _was_ ; a thing without a creation. He was something that formed on accident, an anomaly in creation. All the abstract and uneven magic that didn’t make sense in the world made a nest in his chest. In the court of the Fair Folk, they set his seat at the table, but he was never welcomed or invited into their courts. He was set aside and apart of all others they said. 

But then others said he was a fairy prince fallen from grace, cast out of the courts when he lost his heart in a bet with a witch. What should have killed him made him into a monster no one dared provoke. His hunger for maidens was partly due to his lack of a heart and partly because of the betterment he feels against women folk.

There were other stories too, countless versions of what could have been or might have provoked the creation of such a monster, but none of those stories meant anything to her now. What mattered more than the beginning of his story was what would happen next, what would happen to her.

He loomed ever closer, expanding at the edges to stand like a swatch of darkness against the stones. He wasn’t happy with her, and his red stained mouth told her that well enough. “With this, the conditions of your agreement with the Stiev are met. You well never devour another girl from our lands.”

His angered simmered into something closer to agitation. “Humans, so terribly noble. I suppose creatures who are forced to live in community to survive wouldn’t know how to be anything else. Of course one of you would seek this end. Who put you up to it?” He shifted and twisted around her, his body becoming impossibly long as it grew like a serpent’s tail. His form was whatever he wished it to be, and now he wished to be as terrifying as a coiled adder.His face hovered close to her from behind but she didn’t flinch when he whispered by her ear. “Was it the desert woman, the one who taught you how to paint your lips with poison?”

‘ _He will resist, try to distract you, but the old magic binds him when nothing else will. He must obey_.’

Sakura drew herself up and pulled out the words she had memorized. “Bone Husk King, have me, equal in your court, your queen and consort.”

He flinched around her, drawing back. “No one has asked that of me.”

“I ask that of you now.”

His whole body quivered as if he was straining against something. “This can’t be what you wish. The old woman, her grandson made you a promise and you will not hold him to it.”

‘ _You can’t let him weasel his way out of the binding. Your words are your power and he knows it. Don’t falter. Stay true!_ ’

“Bone Husk King, have me, equal in your court, your queen and consort.”

He hissed outright and his body expanded even more, coiling around her for a second time and sprouting fur from underneath the places were his scales folded over one another. He was shifting again. “There will be no happiness for you, but if you turn back and run from me now, I promise not to follow.” He hissed and flinched.

How many times would she have to say the words? Some stories said three, others seven. “Bone Husk King, have me, equal in your court, your queen and consort.” 

No longer a snake, he surrounded her with the body of a wolf longer and larger than any draft horse. His fangs were wide and his jaw glistened with saliva and blood. “He will weep for you. You will weep for yourself. You trade comfort and love for trials and misery”

She shouted his name as long as she could, asking him to have her as his equal. As her words rang out his body shivered again and his fur fell away to expose a gruesome skeleton with blood and gore dripping from his ribs. He reared and paced in front of her, panting heavily.“Look upon what you wish for. This is your future. Girl, this will be your king.” His breathing became labored, but it never failed to sound menacing. “No love, none for a beast.”

She called out again and he was still fearsome as his skeleton body mutated yet again. She didn’t know what would happen if she propositioned once more, but she doubted he could withstand another call. He was shivering violently with his wide mouths open and drooling. Six eyes, red dots in holes that were meant to be eye sockets, and two mouths made up his monstrous face. He didn’t speak in coherent words, but she heard him chanting the proclamation ‘behold, behold, behold’ in his guttural tone. He smelled like rotting meat and it made her want to gag.

Without words, he communicated an idea to her. ‘Young thing, pretty thing, more fair than any other, you will be wed to a monster the earth spat out in hate, one you could never love. There will be trails to prove yourself a worthy queen. You could still turn back and run to the red haired boy. Why condemn yourself to such a fate?’

She didn’t want to think enough to have to answer him, so she closed her eyes to the gruesome sight before her and tried to block out the smell as she said for her seventh time, “Bone Husk King, have me, equal in your court, your queen and consort.” 

She didn’t know at first if it would take three or seven times, but magic liked certain numbers more, and if it didn’t work after seven times she didn’t know what else she could do. She forced her eyes open and searched for the terrible form that reeked of rotting flesh, but the only thing that stood before her was a man, unmasked, and of average height. He was dressed all in black, but his impression was not a bit diminished. Even all in black, he still looked well to do and even a bit intimidating. There was so much of his hair hanging down, that when he reached a gloved hand up to cover himself, it was enough to conceal the majority of his face.

“Why?” he breathed, and it was so soft she doubted she heard it at first. But then he added more words, and his tone was louder. “You will suffer in my courts. There will never be love in your heart for your husband.” 

Sakura reached for his face, but he turned away from her touch and a second hand came up to hide his face. He breathed into his palms and a bone mask grew between his face and his hands before he dropped them. There were no antlers this time, his mask was one that belonged to a bird.

“You’re going to hold up your end of the pact. The sacrifices will end. No one else will die.”

He hummed and the note was low. “Ah yes, humans and their petty heroism. Even if it means damning yourself, you’re still a human after all. No amount of grace will change that. Sometimes it’s enough to make me want to pity you for it.”

“I don’t need your pity,” Sakura force herself to say, remembering that the man in front of her had eaten her cousins and plenty of girls who had come before. He was a monster and even if he looked like a man, her shoulder was still stained red. Maybe there was no way she would be happy about this choice, but that didn’t mean she regretted it. Happy didn’t always mean right. She knew what she was doing was the right decision.“I want you to promise.”

When he chuckled it was humorless. “I will, but conditions must be met. You who marry an immortal must prove yourself worthy. Three tasks and I will take you as my queen, then the promise will be upheld. As of now,however, you are my bride.”

Sakura felt the tug and tried not to choke in surprise as she was lifted into the air. The gold cord around her ankle snapped as she was turned around and set into the saddle of a black, thin horse. She reached for its mane to steady herself, and grimaced when she looked down and could see how many of its bones were poking out against the thin layer of black. Still, he was larger than any other horse she knew, and steady as a rock.

She started to shift, pulling one leg up over his neck so she could straddle the horse properly, one leg on either side, but a hand stopped her.

“Brides do not ride thusly,” he intoned, removing his hand from her knee and watching her. A moment later he almost grinned, then laughed out loud. “A bride,” he breathed. He turned lazily and tugged at the reigns of his horse, leading it forward and out of the clearing. "My bride."


	2. 2

Sakura pulled her hands back from the thorns, retrieving the flower that had caught her eye. A rose, how poetic. She dropped it below the bush of thorns, plucked and limp, before turning away and striding through the rest of the woodlands.

She had been given three tasks by her monster husband before their union could be considered valid. There were three tasks she had to complete before she could sleep without worrying about the girls in her village and all the families who feared having to say goodbye to a sweet girl that didn’t deserve death. Not that Sakura thought she deserved her fate any more than they did theirs, she had to admit it could be worse.

When she stopped in the clearing light filtered through the emerald canopy to reach out and bounce of the gold of her enchanted armor. It had been a gift after Madara told her of the first of her tasks. Years ago he had hidden away his death in the eye of a needle and hidden that needle in an egg and that egg in a box and that box in a chest and that chest in a tower and that tower in a clearing in the forest without end. He hadn’t told her his other two tasks for her, but the servants in the walls whispered what they thought it would be.

She had heard plenty of stories from her girlhood and too many of the whispers sounded just like bedtime stories. They whispered about secret names and spinning wedding shawls with gold and catching firebirds and dancing forever away inside a fairy ring. She doubted they meant to do anything more than distract her from the task set before her.

“I have no more need of you, you may leave me be,” Sakura says over her shoulder without turning her head enough to see.

She doesn’t have to, if Madara’s envoy wants to be seen, he will make himself visible. So far, Kakashi has kept to the shadows and appeared only at night to sit across from her fire. Still, Sakura knows he always watches her with those mismatched eyes of his. One of them is red, the way Madara’s is red. Sakura heard stories about all the creatures in the world who have red eyes seeing things for the Bone Husk King. Sakura didn’t doubt Madara watched her and kept track of her through Kakashi even when she couldn’t see him.

“Maaa, so cold. Let us hope she is not so when our king makes his bed with her.”

Sakura huffs angrily, not yet used to the teasing or the adult content. She’s been isolated and cloistered away for too long to have any amount of substantial exposure to the world of birds and bees aside from the lessons the old woman taught in privet after the waking hours were past.

“When you make yourself scares, take heed to keep your foul speech to yourself,” Sakura ground out.

“You’ll be lonely.”

“I’m used to being alone.”

“That is true, oh, but why does that make me sad to hear it?”  Kakashi was smoke behind her and then a solid figure in front of her.Taller, he leaned down, blocking out sunlight. “Maybe you’d be less of a pity if you had someone to talk to.”

“I didn’t ask for your pity.” Sakura pushed him to the side and trekked on.  

The forest around her was starting to show her things. She knew it was laced with enchantments, and most of the trees were more alive than others. When she picked flower free of their stalks their voices cried out in an ancient language. The deeper she traveled, the louder the flowers screamed, and that’s how Sakura knew she was heading the right way. Someone as vain as Madara wouldn’t dare hid his death in a place less than the very best the forest had to offer. She didn’t doubt the tower was encircled in a fairy ring or toadstool circlet. That flashy taunting was typically his style.

Kakashi huffed before turning around and skipping ahead of her to fade back into a shadow and remain unseen. He played the part of a nonchalant observer, but sakura could tell that he was a bit more than just that. She didn’t know how much more, but he watched her too keenly and hid his confidence too well to not be worth the Bone Husk King’s favor.

Sakura reached for another flower, but hesitated, looking once more for Kakashi. He wasn’t as well hidden this time, instead sitting atop a long tree branch above her head. He pretended to be looking at something from his pocket, but Sakura could feel his eyes as if they were a physical force.

The other reason she knew she was heading in the right direction was on account of how active her escort seemed to become. The closer they got, the more Kakashi came out from his hiding. And it wasn’t lost on Sakura how he made no offer to direct or aid her yet. Still, he’s too keen.

Sakura pulls the flower and there’s strong magic as it screams in the oldest of languages yet. She is getting closer and it’s enough to make her run. Ahead of her in the direction the flowers were growing towards, Sakura ran towards the clearing where the world would become a little less clustered. There were stone things caught int he ivy, and underneath her feet she glimpsed the ruins of a long forgotten place made from stone. Once upon a time this place used to be something more than just a forest. But that was too long ago, back when the stories say man had learned to fly and even touched the edges of the sky before triggering their own demise in greed and fire.

The stones become less sparse, and soon there is a steady path underneath the greenery for her to follow. A single stone pillar stood up on one side of the path and Sakura could see the indent in the ground on the other side of the path where the other would stand in order for the two to connect in an arch. A little ways on there was another pair, and then another. She didn’t have to pluck anymore flowers, the place she desired was finally before her.  

The stone structure was old and ancient with no roofs and crumbling walls, but built in the center of what used to be a church, there was something new. Stepping into the clearing, Sakura saw it was a seamless, stone tower. Rushing through the ruins Sakura skips around what used to be doorways and walls to stop at the base of the enchanted tower. It vibrated with magic and seemed almost alive when she stood too close to it. She reached out and the halo on her stomach hummed in response.

A vision of he moon, choked in singing voices, made her gasp. She stumbled backwards falling onto her bottom, her body was still a mess of shivers as the echo of the voices made her head feel hallow.

_Too much magic_.

“You okay there, bud?” Kakashi asked, peering at her curiously with both eyes. He couldn’t see through her armor, he wouldn’t know about her full circle of grace, but Madara would.

“I’m fine,” Sakura breathed, forcing herself back up.

She stood with her feet more firmly planted and set her gaze back on the tower. There were no windows and no doors that she could see. A quick survey of the far side of the tower produced nothing new. It was without entrance.

Sakura almost opened her mouth to ask Kakashi how to get in, but closed it once she realized. “It’s a test.”

Kakashi chuckled low and teasing. “Aren’t all things? You are trying to prove yourself worth of the hand of an immortal king. Don’t think it would be easy.”  

Sakura bit back her retort, thinking it wiser to pretend she didn’t want to tell him where he could take his sass and shove it. She could do this. She was smarter than one puzzle. _Puzzle_!

The thought provoked her into action. Sakura approach the tower again and held her hands up, trying to gauge where the strongest veins f magic ran. If she concentrated hard enough, she could start to feel where exactly they ran, how thick they were, and how deep into the stone they were buried. She saw the magic running through the tower like a red string, fractured and knotted at parts. Sakura found a knot and tugged at it with her own magic. She could feel Kakashi watching her closely, but she did her best to ignore the way she could feel his eyes on her as she worked. She found another two knots and forced them to work with her magic, straightening them out and tugging them straight.

The last knot made the whole thing come together on a groan and Sakura ran to the side where she heard stone shifting. Her eyes searched for a door or opening, but only two things had changed. There was text on the stonework and in one of the stones there was a keyhole.

“Do you have the key to this, or does Madara have the key to this?” Sakura asked, turning to look back over her shoulder at Kakashi.

He chuckled, crouching down and looking up. “Maybe you should read the message first before you ask for any key.” His tone was snarky and it was obvious he got too much fun out of watching her struggle.

Sakura looked to the ancient script and thanked her stars it was in one of the fae languages she knew. It was one of the more common ones, actually. But a hundred years ago it had been all but forgotten. That must have been when Madara raised the tower.

“The more you add the less it weights.” Her eyes went wide. “It’s a riddle.”

“Fun!” Kakashi chirped, jumping backwards into the trees to sit atop a branch at his leisure. “It looks like you might be here a while so I’ll just take a minute to read here if you don’t mind. Madara hates it when I read smut with his eye. Poor guy needs to get laid soon.”

Sakura flushes at the way he eyes her expectedly, as if she was the one with the answer to his unasked question. She’s not playing that game just yet. She has a riddle to solve, a riddle about weight and adding and things. Sakura walks in a circle around the tower, moving while her brain hums with thought. She’s thinking of too many things, trying to find the one thing with her answer in it. He heel catches a dip in the ground and she sees it’s actually a gopher hole, or a hole for some burrowing animal.

“Of course.”

She bends down and flexes her fingers before reaching into the hole. A moment later she feels something cold and heavy. She retracts her arm and pulls out a heavy iron key on a silk string. Iron, of course Madara would choose to make the key out of something the fairy folk couldn’t touch. It ensured his safety from those who made it this far.

When Sakura lines they key up with the lock and inserts it, the lock clicks and her key sings a bit. She turns it once and the door swings open, appearing out of nowhere. From behind her she heard Kakashi fall out of his tree, sputtering.

“Already?! I didn’t even get to the table scene! How did you do it?” He skips up alongside her but Sakura stops him with a raised hand before heading in herself. She will have his death by her own efforts without interruption.  

_Madara told her of the first of her tasks. Years ago he had hidden away his death in the eye of a needle and hidden that needle in an egg and that egg in a box and that box in a chest and that chest in a tower and that tower in a clearing in the forest without end._

She found the clearing in the forest without end, she found his tower and beat the puzzles it presented her with, and now she needed to find a chest where inside there should be a box and an egg. Inside that egg, resting in the eye of the needle, would be her husband’s death. Funny, how the first task he assigned her was one that would leave him vulnerable.

The chest was right there, easy to find. Nothing else took up space in the room, and the walls were bare of decoration or adornment. Sakura paused in front of the chest to look it over, noting how it’s exterior was just as dull as the room around it. No one would suspect what was trapped inside. The chest sat latched and locked, but Sakura curled her fingers into a fist and broke it apart with all the grace in her hands. The chest held a box, just as Madara said it would, and she broke that lock open on that as easily as the others.

The egg that rested inside was made of Mother of Pearl and opal with veins of gold all the way through. It was precious and lovely to behold, but Sakura paused over it only a moment before splitting it open on the edge of the chest. It came apart in two even halves. A needle waited for her inside.

‘MY DEATH MY DEATH, YOU HAVE TAKEN IT FROM ME!’

A wail of sorrow echoed in her head as wind swirled around her. But then, as soon as it came, the wind passed and she heard the voices no longer. Once more, she was left alone with her groom’s death set in the eye of a needle, the first of her tasks was completed. At least she knew she did one thing right.

Sakura laced string through the needle’s eyes and set it around her neck to hang like a necklace above her heart, tucked underneath her armor. She held her hand over that part of her breastplate, feeling a knot of cold where the needle rested against her flesh.

Leaving the way she came, Sakura was tempted to think the first of her three quests had been too easy, when a ripple of magic passed beneath the soles of her feet. She braced anew, hands splayed and ready to harden with Grace while Kakashi hummed from his spot on the outskirt of the trees. His posture was no longer relaxed, and his eyes were roaming.

“We have company,” Kakashi chirped in a voice too cheery to be anything but fake. She could see the way the veins in his neck bunched. Even a fae familiar who was just as immortal as his master seemed worried. Sakura swallowed.

“Who?” Sakura hissed, knowing she wouldn’t recognize any name, but wanting to be made aware all the same.  

“You would-“ Kakashi’s voice was silenced as if by an outside force and then the expression on his face is a mess of ever shifting emotions. A second before he can make up his mind Sakura feels thunder and hears birds screaming before a flickering arrow of silver and golds stands out of Kakashi’s chest right above the heart. He falls to his knees on a choked gasp.

Sakura wheels, looking in the direction of the arrow’s trajectory before running backwards to Kakashi’s side. The arrow in his chest flickers, as if it was made out of polished lightning.  Sakura raises her hands to try and heal it, but Kakashi catches her before she can harness the green glow. One look at his face and she knows, for whatever reason, healing him would be a mistake.

“I had not thought I would encounter such a sight when I woke up this morning,” a voice called out in a echo from within the actual trees it seemed. Sakura spun, looking for the voice, but it went on, bodiless. “If I had know I would run into such a cheep imitation of myself I might have stayed in bed. But this an interesting development….”

Kakashi grabbed Sakura wrist and squeezed when she saw a figure step out from between the trees. Kakashi forced on a playful smile, even though his face was as white as a sheet and blood was leaking from his chest. “Ah, Tobirama, what a surprise to meet you in the forest that never ends. I had thought you stayed out of your brother’s lands these days.”

The new figure was not yet fully formed, but aside from his armor Sakura could see his face was pale, stern, and angled with steel edged grace. His eyes were red, but not in the way Madara’s eyes were red. No, the man named Tobirama had eyes that just happened to be read but beyond that they were not significant. The rest of him swirled like mist about his body until he exhaled and became solid. His hair was a wind swept mess of silver slipping over his leaf shaped ears.

“The business between my brother and I will remain between my brother and I.” Tobirama’s red eyes peeled towards her and Sakura felt rooted to the spot. “Who are you to trespass these woods?”

Sakura felt no compulsion to answer, but Kakashi’s grip on her wrist made her believe he thought she might. Sakura frowned, shaking herself free onto the turn herself half away from the newcomer. “I am no concern of a man who does not first introduce himself.

Through his eyes Sakura saw his mind spinning. “I’ve heard stories,” he began on a low tone. “Of a human girl subjugated by the pale beast, the one who lurks in shadow.  Be you she?”

“Don’t answer him, Sakura! He-ckkk”

Kakashi voice was ripped out of him as another arrow buried deep into his chest and knocked him back into a different tree. Sakura felt her breath leave her as she watched the breakdown of his immortal body take place. Kakashi shook, turning black in places closest to the arrows. It was a creeping blackness that would eat him up into nothing and send him back to Madara where he would be reformed after another painstaking resurgence. It was as close an immortal familiar could come to death while their master still lived.  

Kakashi went still, eyes finally dull.

Sakura turned to look back over at the pale intruder and saw him wave a bow of mist out of existence, seemingly unconcerned with her as a threat. His armor was like her’s, but silver and stronger in magic not doubt. At his waist he carried a sword that sung songs of power from it’s sheath. No doubt, he was someone she should fear.

He caught her eye and spoke. “I have no love for poor imitations of my style and power. Madara fashioned him thusly to annoy me. His bird call is but a cheep imitation of my own swan song.” He touched his fingers to the pommel of his sword and Sakura heard the echo of the singing from before, sounding less far off this time around.  

“What do you want?” Sakura asked, licking her lips and edging backwards. “I am human and have no qualms with you.”

“Be as it may, you are still under the thumb of the Bone Husk King, are you not?” he asked, saying Madara’s title with a sneer. “You’re one of the girls he plans to devour.”

“I will be the last.”

Tobirama’s eyes are bright now, almost pleased. “Yes, that is a Truth they foretold long ago. Do you know what you hold in your hands, girl?” His tone is almost overly familiar with her, acting as thought they were already old friends.

Sakura feels her hackles rise as she recognizes the lust in his eyes. The fae is thirsty for it, for a power over Madara. She can tell there is no love between the two of them, and if he knew she were more than just his next meal, he might see her differently.

“I don’t know you, stay away from me,” Sakura hisses, backing up a step and raising her hands as fists. “And you know nothing of me or what I’ve done.”

“Then tell me, girl,” he whispers, stepping closer to her. “Speak you name, so that I may call it.”

“I dare not,” she hisses.

Tobirama pauses and his hungry eyes lack something for a moment before he nods and then drops to one knee, a arm crossing his breast. “Forgive me lady, I am without excuse. I am as the imitation once called me, known as Tobirama, prince of the wood kin. These forests belong to my dear brother.” He lifts his head and his eyes are soft. “You are most fair, what may I call you?”

“Sakura.” She doesn’t tell him anything else and she doesn’t lower her fists.

He frowns at this, but doesn’t seem angry. “I mean you no ill. My quarrels are not with you, but the beast that binds you to his will. Might you not see that our goals are aligned in this?”  

“You know nothing of my goals.”

“You have his death. What more I need know than that. Surly you seek to dominate him with it and free your people.”

Sakura had considered that, she truly had. His death was so cold and small and fit in the eye of a needle against her flesh. What was to stop her from taking it between her fingers and crushing it. She could do it, she could end it all. Her people would be free. But…

Her heart ached at the thought of it and she cursed herself. The armor was too warm and comfortable to not enjoy and be thankful for. The meals every morning, the hushed compliments whispered through shadows while he hid his face from her…all of it made his death a bitter thing to consider.

“You,” she began in a voice the felt so much older than what she expected to come out of her mouth. “You wish his death. Why?”

“He is an evil to this world, need I more reason than that?”

But he wasn’t evil, not to her he wasn’t. He was a tortured thing, a dark thing, a wild thing that could not be redeemed or explained into purity, but in all his imperfection, he was still someone she didn’t want to see dead.  After a lifetime of being hidden and handled like brittle paper, she was given armor for the very first time. She was given whatever would delight her and the freedom to take delight in it.

“I don’t trust you,” Sakura finally responds.

His eyes widen a fraction before they begin to flicker across her face, searching for something. “He’s tricked you into thinking he’s a good man, but he isn’t. You’re just a child, you don’t know.”

“I know enough.” Sakura raises her hands closer to her face. “Let me pass or attack me now. I will not be teased.”

“Doe, I will not harm you,” he almost chuckles, taking in her appearance. She doesn’t doubt she must make him laugh from absurdity. A human taking on a fae prince? Comedy gold. “I would no sooner strike down a fawn for sleeping.”

“Then let me pass.”

“Back to that wretched creature? You don’t know how much of a mistake that would be,” Tobirama begins to explain, raising a single hand with his palm facing up. Sakura feels heat around her and magic begins to grow, spreading out into a web underneath her. Sakura steps back, but gold bars spring up from the corners of the seal and she is trapped in a gilded cage like a bird…again.

Sakura doesn’t care if it was the last thing Kakashi warned her, there is nothing in this world that would ever keep her locked up in bars and doors for as long as she lives. Her Grace is a simmer blue as power flows into her hands. Sakura scrams and strikes the earth with her fist and it shatters underneath her, breaking the seal around her. Tobirama’s eyes are wide, wider than ever, but Sakura doesn’t stop to chat. She turns tail and run like a rabbit in the woods.

It’s only been a month since Sakura started to learn how to use and manipulate the finer points of her Grace, but she’s always known how to run, so she does.

Never run from something immortal, it will only attract their attention.

Sakura doesn’t care to remember her lessons, as she darts between trees with only the general direction of Madara’s lands in her mind. Tobirama is behind her, she doesn’t hear him, but she feels his chase, feels his drive and magic pushing him forward after her.

An arrow surges through the air, missing her by a mile. She knows he won’t strike her, he’s only trying to scare her, but she won’t win with something so simple. She’s healed worst wounds and the Maw can’t be far. Madara will meet her on the borders and she will be fine. He’ll know where to find her. He-

Sakura chokes as an arrow pierces her shoulder, coming out through her collarbone. It’s burning in her flesh and she screams, falling into the earth to writhe. Never before had something tortured her so greatly. Her blood is seeping out of her and she’s not worried about sealing it up again, but the burning won’t stop.

Tobirama is behind her, reaching for her and cursing, but before he can touch her a darkness falls over the par of them and a canopy of screeching bats pushes him away from Sakura. Something breaks the arrow arrow’s shaft, and even though part of it is still in her, the burning stops. Sakura whimpers and looks up to see the underside of Madara’s mask as he bends over her, shoulders high and claws digging deep into the dirt.

“You,” Madara growls low and savage. He sounds ready to lunge.

Tobirama flinches, but regain his position. “You make no authority in these lands, creature. You are forbidden from here!”

“I break laws for blood and kin, child slayer,” Madara snaps, bending further over Sakura and expanding in size. “You bleed my bride and I will break your neck for it.”  

Tobirama’s eyes flash in anger and his bow is back, cracking with light and heat. Madara doesn’t miss how Sakura flinches from beneath him. “You have no claim on a spring born! The daughters of the forest are our kin. That’s what she is, isn’t she? I saw her use it. She’s made with Grace, she’s a healer. Those are the marks of our seeds in the  humans. She’s meant for our lands. She’s ours by right!”

When Madara roared the whole earth shook. “You have no right to what you do not foster. My bride is my bride, and I will keep her for myself, free and whole and mine. Do not think to raise your bow against me.”

“You’re a demon, you have no bride!”

Madara roars and it is a nightmare to her ears as the trees around them wail in response, withering and dying. Sakura screws her eyes shut and only opens them again when the world goes quiet. All around them, the trees stand bare of their leaves, withered old things. Tobirama looks shaken, but still manages to stand.

“Yo-you don’t get to do this! There are laws, the old magic-“

“The old magic permits me this. If I spill your blood here it will not be missed and your brother will have no need of vengeance.” As if to punctuate his point, Madara growled once more as he shifted to scoop Sakura up into his arms. He only hesitated once when moving her jostled the arrow shaft still lodged in her shoulder. She was pale and her gold armor was cracked and melted around the entry point. Madara nearly shook as he looked her over.

From where he stood, Tobirama was close enough to see what Madara saw when he looked over Sakura and shame made his lip curl and his ears flush.Sakura didn’t doubt he had made a mistake with his aim when he actually hit her. He sounded so shocked that his arrow had actually found her shoulder.

“She’s hurt, leave her with my brother, he’ll-“

It was a bark, guttural and fear that cut Tobirama off. Madara seemed mad beyond words at the thought of leaving Sakura behind.

Madara held Sakura closer to his chest, and his chest was warm against Sakura’s face as curled up in his arms, feeling tired and faint. Her first brush with violent magic, not including Madara’s teeth in her shoulder, left her feeling empty. The magic of the woodland fa was truly a thing to fear. Anything immortal from the daybreak courts was worth fearing.

Madara spoke again, but this time his tone was controlled. Sakura felt it against her ear as she laid her head against his chest. “I’ll not step a foot more into your lands. I came here for one thing and now I have her. Pray I not seek your head as well.”  

There was darkness around them, even as Sakura saw Tobirama draw another arrow to his bow and scream threats to the ‘bastard in the bone mask.’ Less than a second and they were back in the Maw, Madara’s forest.

“Ow,” Sakura softly whispered when she tried moving herself. She tried to pull up her Grace, but it came sluggish into her palm. She huffed, finding it difficult to concentrate.

“No,” Madara whispered kissing her face. “You can not do that while exhausted. You need control. Rest. My healers will see to your wound.  The wort is behind you.”

“Wait.” Sakura reached up and fisted her hand in the fabric of his shirt. He paused, staring down at her through his bird skull mask. Sakura coughed before shifting and reaching into her armor to pull on the string from around her neck. “Here, I got this for you.”

Madara knew at once what she was offering him. “My death.”

“You told me it was the first trial. I passed right. Tell me I passed the first trial.”

“No.”

Sakura’s head swam. “What, wait, what did you just say?”

Madara was looking down at her and through his mask she saw his eyes soften. If the bone of the bird’s beak wasn’t in the way, Sakura didn’t doubt she would see his smile. “No, you passed the first _two_ trials. I commissioned you first to test your brain, and you found my death without fail. The second trial was a trial of heart and trust. You could have handed my death over and been done with me. You hold my death, you hold the greatest of powers over me, yet you still offer it freely. Did you not know you could have won your freedom back to the village this way?”

“I didn’t want to go back, I still don’t.” Sakura almost yawns.

Madara hums and his body is warm and soft all around her. “You saved me. Had you handed over my death I would have been no more. You have more than passed the second trial.” He presses the needle back to her. “Keep it safe for me. I trust you with it.”

“You don’t think I might try to use it one day?” she asks in a tired chuckle.

“Maybe, but I can’t say I don’t also anticipate it. It’s been quite some time since I needed to feel fear, but I felt fear today when I heard your screams.” She hears him swallow and feels his absent thumb trace circles into the underside of her arm where he holds her. “I never want to hear such a sound for as long as I breath. No, keep my death with you. If something were to happen to you, I wouldn’t want to be here to live through it.”

Sakura feels safer than ever. She knew what love was, or what love was supposed to be. The people of her home adored her from afar, and she guessed that was a type of love. But aside from Sasori, she never felt the urge to love and be loved. And even with Sasori, she never felt the desire to reach up and kiss a man, but she did now, so that’s exactly what Sakura did.

With tired, near fumbling hands, she lifts up his mask before he can protest and sits up in his arms to hold his face and slate her lips over his. He quivers at the contact and melts beneath her touch. His lips part hesitantly for her and she guides them further open, leading him through the waves of longing.

Deep in his throat, Madara makes a happy sound of contentment and wraps his arms around her tighter, to lift her up, spinning as they kiss. He breaks with a gasp and rest his forehead against hers. “Sakura,” he breaths, before his lips are on her neck, searching for the secret spot that will make her mewl for him.

“Ma-Ma-“ Sakura tries to say his name, but she’s woozy with a head full of cotton and eyes weighed down with the drudges of weariness. But still, she moans under his touch where he kisses her neck. He strays a bit closer to where her armor begins and then she is falling into a bed of silk and he’s peeling her breastplate from her.

He kisses her bare neck again and Sakura wants nothing more than to melt for him, but she grabs him by the hair and pulls him back. He pants a bit, eyes glassy with need, but braces himself and waits for her to speak.

“No.” Sakura struggles, but sits up on one good arm and levels a steady gaze on her groom to be. “No, not like this.”

“You do not want me?”

“Not like this. I will be your equal in all things, all things, or nothing at all. Do you remember the words I spoke to you? Have me as your equal, your queen and consort. You will not have that part of me until you have honored your word.” She forces her voice into steel for him. “I will have you as me equal or not at all.”

She fears he might be upset, or many even angry, but the smile that curves up his lips is one of pride.  “Yes, you will be,” he vows, kissing her collarbone and leaning back. His smile is for her and all of her. “I think it is good then that you are ready for the third and final of your tasks. The trial of the mind, the heart, and now…the body.”

She swallows. “What is my trial.”

His smile is too wide and his eyes are too full of longing. She wants to sleep, but stays awake for him.

“Say your marriage vows to me and consummate our love and I will be yours forever, my queen.” 


	3. Chapter 3

She stood across from him at one end of the fairy spiral. Beneath the tips of her toes was the end tail of the spiral from the earth. Madara stood atop the end of the spiral tail for the heavens. Between them was enough space for a lifetime of mystery that they would each have to traverse in the union ceremony.

The sun was barely below the horizon, getting ready to break across the glen and rise. In the faint light Sakura could just make out the sigils and marks painted across her chosen’s chest. He wore nothing aside from a single arm band around his bicep and a shirt of white that hung low across his hips. When he moved the slits up to his thigh showed more inked marks and drawings.

Sakura was a near literal twin of the Bone Husk King. There was no consideration given to her modest or her sex as her chest was also left bare, the only articles of clothing she wore were a similar arm band and the same white, slit shirt of loos, flowing cotton. His band was made of golds and fashioned after the stars, hers was silver and made up of different phases of the moon.

‘ _As soon as the dawn breaks, we will move towards each other following the Ley Lines. You will be made known to me and I to you. We will join as one after our vows at the center._ ’

She didn’t know what that meant, but she expected she would undergo an altering magic. Unions between mortals, (even ones with Grace) and the fae were rare, but not as rare as those between mortals and high fae or the royalty. There were plenty of old stories of such a thing, but many of them were just altered version of the same dream.  

Sakura feels the earth hum under her and she tenses, waiting for the first light to set her off. Madara’s words roll over in her head, again and again.

‘Do not start until the sun and do not finish until the ending. If you break from the spiral now you will forever be left open to all the chaos and loose magics in the world, a fate not even I can protect you from. Do not break from it, do not falter, do not deviate.’

The sun was a spear across the sky and Sakura felt her heart jolt as the tug under her toes guided her forward. The images began to unravel in her mind as she traced the line in perfect harmony with Madara’s own steps. She saw his first memories, the ones where he emerged from a dead tree in a river of ash and oil, reaching out towards the sun with black, clawed fingers.

Another few steps and she saw his early days, when men and women became meals. He was hungry. So hungry, and he suffered for it. He cried in the beginning, not understanding why he must be forced to eat the people who came to keep him company. He wanted companionship.

Sakura turned along the spiral, following it. She saw the High King of the Fae, Tobirama’s older brother, the one who became Madara’s best friend. She saw the way the elder made to heal Madara from the inside out. There was a seal fashioned to keep the lust at bay. Being a creature created to devour the blight upon the earth called ‘humans,’ there was nothing Madara could have done to resist the urge until the seal, but it is a temporary measure. Years in the future, it will break.

In her mind there is an unearthly howl. She sees the agony when Madara, now feed from the hunger, returns to his castle of bones and graves.

She’s nearly halfway there and passes across from Madara on the spiral’s lines. Sakura sees the days where he seeks out evil. Men in the forest who pry on others become his meal, not out of necessity of hunger, but out of anger. He doesn’t need to eat for as long as he lives, but he does because he is a monster and that is what he must do.

He lets the youngest boy go on a warning.  

Guilt.

Regret.

Sorrow.

Loneliness.

Despair.

Fear.

Sakura finds it hard to breath as she round the final bend.

She sees the girls from her village, the way Madara takes them back and packs them up with food and shoes and warns them to never go back, least he truly eat them up. She watches as Madara spirits them away to the edges of his lands and hands them off to women and merchants who need girls for a trade.

Not a one of them was ever devoured.

Madara is in front of her now and she has to lean back to look up at his face and see what sort of expression he is wearing. He is without his mask. The wind is around them, passing through the hag stones tied up under the stone arches. Through them, a dozen different portals have been closed off to make this place, this time, this moment, intimate and private. They are open and exposed to the sky and the earth, but no one else.

“All that I am,” he begins in a rumble.

“All that I am…” Sakura mimics the words.

“I give unto you. All that I make, I give unto you, All that I rule, I give unto you.” Madara recites each part and Sakura is an echo with her vow.

Madara reaches for her waist to pull her to him and she comes willingly, hand snaking up to his shoulder.

“You are my wife, my queen.” He speaks the Truth and the earth rumbles, accepting his words.

“You are my husband, my king.” Sakura feels a tug on Her Grace and wishes she had something to cover the mark on her stomach as it shimmers in the pale gold light of the new sun. Her truth is spoken and the deed, old and ancient as the oldest of magics, is done.

(Smut under cut) 

There is a shot through her and Sakura arches, almost pained by it, feeling Madara only jerk to it slightly. Suddenly there is a heat in her, simmering, curling, licking like a serpent in the pit of her belly. She moans from it, feeling her knees tremble just a bit. Her arm around his neck keeps her upright. Beneath her hand, she feels his skin flush.

A sound draws her attention up and she looks to see her husband near purring as he beholds her with oddly dilated eyes. He looks euphoric as he tugs her even closer and nudges a knee between her legs. She feels his arousal and gasps, before swallowing. She is similarly made by the old magic. She had been warned long ago of such thing, and Madara had made it clear what would happen at the end of their ceremony, but Sakura hadn’t expected the wedding lust to be so…

He growls low like a cat in heat against her and she shivers.

One of his legs hooks behind her’s and he knocks her down, catching her before she can touch the soft earth. He looms over her, pushing the hair out of her face and away from her breasts. She had been wearing her head down in front of her since the start, and now she is truly exposed.

She moves in a way she knows she must,, arching up, reaching with the back of her ankles behind his back. She pulls him closer and he descends on a kiss. Sakura parts eagerlly for him and moves up, trying to catch the shape of his mouth, swallowing the flavor. He traces the underside of her tongue with his own and she gasps at how it tickles. He doesn’t stop, and moves more ruthlessly to take more of her. When he breaks for air, a strand of silver remains between them connecting them. He kisses her again, taking her lip on a playful nip before his tongue is back in her mouth, tracing her in love.

When he pulls away, it is to trail kisses up to the side of her face, pausing under her ear where she nearly moans again for him.

“Say my name,” he whispers to her, voice heavy and seedy. He’s drunk on her.

“Make me,” Sakura hums, enjoying too much how her body feels with all the magic and arousal. She wants to drown in the feeling and never emerge.

The challenge only furthers her husband’s excitement as he reaches dow to run a hand down her torso, and then up again to cup the underside of her breast. He knees her, streaking the pain swirls across her nipples and telling the world exactly what he has done to his wife. He pinches the tips and Sakura jerks before his hand is replaces with his mouth.  

“My name,” he growls from the underside of her breast. He lips her again for good measure.

“Bite me,” Sakura taunts on a woozy smile. Madara’s eyes lock hers in place for a moment before he bares his teeth and playfully nips at the points of her breasts again, making her laugh with pleasure.

He moves down, his lips between the valley of her breasts, down her stomach and it’s seal, to the base of her navel where he teases and kisses in reverences. There are dips around her hips he teases with the rough pads of his calloused fingers, tantalizing the soft skin.  

There is still a skirt at her waist, hanging low and slit open nearly to her center, but Madara doesn’t remove it. Instead, he places on of his hands on her leg, just above the knee, and drags it up the length of her leg. His thumb is dangerously close to the space between her legs when he stops to rub circles into her skin, teasing her with touch.

“Is tease all you’re going to do?” Sakura gasps, nearly closing her eyes as her opposite leg jerks.

“I could say the same of you. My name, love?”

Sakura opens her eyes part way and the look she strokes him with is nearly enough to make him falter. She moves her hips with a roll and says, “See if you can make me scream it.”

He swallows before his hand  turns around to reach the band of fabric around her and tear it free. He leans back and does the same with his own, and the tent he had been sporting underneath the fabric is left to stand erect. It’s long enough to fill his hand and veined up the underside. Sakura watches as it nearly throbs, weeping at the tip. She swallows and rolls her hips again, eyes hazy with lust.

“Oh,” Madara chuckles darkly. “Not yet, love.”

He swallows and then lowers himself to the place between her legs, reaching out to trace her folds and part them neatly with two fingers. He runs his hand up the front to where a pearl of nerves zing at his touch. It’s the most of a reaction he’s seen from her as she moans and tenses. She shivers when his finger teases another swipe. She mewls and he obligees her lust. Swirling his thumb up and around he has her panting and seeping from her opening.

When it seems she might master herself again he leans his head down and licks the strike, making her throw her head back into the grass and arch at her hips. Her hands are fist in the soil, bracing against the earth as he does it again, pleasing her as his tongue dips in and out and then up again. He hums in pleasure when he hears her curse.

“Wrong word, love.”

Sakura hisses, and opens an eye as her head rolls to the side. “Don’t tease me then and get on with it!”

Madara kisses the inside of her leg. “I want to hear it.”

“Let me feel full, then,” Sakura says with another roll of her hips. Her eyes are both open now, and while her cheeks are flushes, her look is taunting. “If you can.”

Madara decides he loves this woman even more than he did when he first stepped onto the spiral. He’s been enamored with her for nearly six months, but love…yes, he’s loved her since he’s known her, but this love is a new sort of love that leaves him to wonder.

Humming, he leans back and grips his cock again, holding it loosely before pumping once or twice. He watches her watch him and delights in how wide her eyes go. It’s enough to make him purr. His thumb passes over the head and wipes the silver strand of pre cum down the side before lining up with her. She’s nearly breathless as she watches, bracing with her hands in the grass and her elbows digging into the soil.

“Don’t forget what you’re to say,” he hums low, voice retaining that vocal tone of dominance while in dark timbre.

Her nails are deep in the soil as she forces herself to speak. “Don’t think I-AH!” Sakura cries out as he thrusts into her, nearly filling her before stopping to retreat and come again, hitting even further.  He grabs her shoulders and swallows again at the heat he’s surrounded with, before pushing in again on a groan. He’s never felt so weak before in his life.

It’s a spark of a thought that hits him in a moment and Madara knows at once he never wants to be parted from this woman. Her heart, her soul, her mind, her body, all of it is his to cherish and adore. All of her and all of him, they are for each other.

Madara pulls back and lowers her hips before thrusting into her again and there are tears in her eyes as she cries out in a note of ecstasy before his rhythm truly begins. In a handful of seconds the pace is set and she’s gasping in time, clenching around him as he creates the speed of the friction between them.

He thinks he almost hears his name, but all that falls from her lips are the first and second syllable of his name, a teasing of her own. Madara growls, desperate for the sound of her screaming for him, upping his pace. She pants, reaching up with her hips and wrapping her legs around his back, crossing at the ankles.

He’s building and so is she, and if she cums there is no way he will not. He strikes her deep at a new angle and her voice is a shrill cry breaking apart the last of the darkness in his heart as she calls out his name.

Madara empties with a grunt, nearly delirious as the supernova of his orgasm leaves him lost somewhere in space.

Below him, Sakura rides out the wave of her own euphoric explosion, hearing the voices on the moon, feeling the roll of heat throughout her, and the discharge of something like electricity underneath her skin. And then she’s falling back to earth and the world around her is close and soft and warm.

Sakura opens her eys and next to her Madara has flopped down. He smiles when she sees him, without his mask.

“You did it.”

Sakura smiles lazily. “So did you.”

He reaches over and pulls her into his arms to hold. 


End file.
